Students March in Yerevan Against Planned Abolishment of Military Deferment

After fruitless meetings with the Minister of Education and Science Levon Mkrtchyan and the head of the Armenian government Karen Karapetyan, the group of students protesting against the government plans to abolish military draft deferments boycotted classes again on Monday. The protesters, a group of several hundred students, continued to march to Yerevan universities with calls to other students to join their movement. The students tried to enter the buildings of some of the Yerevan State University branches but were prevented from doing so by security officers.

The protesters and the journalists covering the march also faced resistance from security guards when trying to enter the main building of the State Economic University. Only students of the Economic University managed to enter the territory adjoining the building, where they were met by about 5 dozen other students who demanded that the protesters “do not hinder the educational process.”

“The main issue is that the entry was prohibited by unauthorized persons. I’m a freshman, and I do not know whether they’re students or not. But in any case, we managed to make our voices heard.  Tomorrow, we will try to self-organize inside the university, no matter what obstacles we meet,” one of the protesters, a student of the Economic University, told reporters.

Recall, under a Defense Ministry-drafted bill preliminarily passed by the Armenian National Assembly in late October, draft deferments would only be granted to those students who will enter into an agreement with the Defense Ministry to serve in the armed forces as contract officers for 3 years after graduation.

On November 9, a small group of the protesters met with Armenian prime minister Karen Karapetyan, who told the students that the law would not be changed and advised them to come forward with draft normative acts only after the adoption of the amendments. “We don’t see a point in negotiating with them after the law is adopted,” students Vahan Kostanyan told reporters after the two-hour meeting.

Minister of Education and Science Levon Mkrtchyan, for his part, told the students on November 8 that the published version of the law had passed in the first reading and would soon be adopted.